CSBG Archive

Top Fives Joneses

Top Five Month (check here to see an archive of all the top five lists featured so far) continues with a three-part take on “Keeping Up With the Joneses” by looking at the top five comic book artists, writers and comic book characters with the last name of Jones.

Today we look at the top five artists with the last name of Jones!

Enjoy!

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Stephen Jones

He did a number of good fill-in issues during the 1990s (the above cover is by Kitson – Jones did the interiors)

Leif Jones

Leif Jones wrote and drew a neat little indie vampire comic some time ago. Man, if he were doing that in, say, 2008, imagine how much press he’d get for it!! He has been working in the industry ever since and he has gotten even better since those days!

Christopher Jones

Jones is a particularly good storyteller. His Batman Strikes work was really fluid, dynamic stuff.

Malcolm Jones III

Jones had a compelling darkness to his work. Sadly, he took his own life in 1996.

Nat Jones

Nat Jones has a particular affinity for horror comics – he is also a strong designer.

Arvell Jones

Arvell Jones was a strong artist for Marvel and DC for many years before the comic industry lost him to the TV business, although he returned for a bit to do a stint on Kobalt for Milestone Comics.

5. Jeffrey Catherine Jones

I thought of Jones as more of a fantasy painter than a comic artist, but I guess she really did do enough comics work to qualify for this list, so my apologies for leaving her off the list. As strictly a painter, she would rival the top spot period. On just her comic work, she’s still a top five artist easily.

4. Joëlle Jones

Joëlle Jones is an amazing artist and she is only getting better – she might very well be #1 on the list in a few years!! Her most notable talents are in the dynamic layouts and expressive character work that she does. She’s awesome.

3. Kelley Jones

This is a tough one. I like Kelley Jones a lot – I dig his over-the-top designs and crazy exaggerated anatomy, so he has a GREAT case for #2 on the list. I dunno, though, perhaps it is a personal bias., but whatever the case…

2. Casey Jones

I just think that Casey Jones is such an underrated talent that I’m giving him this spot. He is a brilliant storyteller and I like how varied he makes his characters – you can really feel the personality of each person in his works. I wish he did more comic book work.

25 Comments

At first I thought this was going to be the top five comic book CHARACTERS with the name Jones. Whoops!

Anyway, I did like this a lot, since it spotlighted some great but underrated artists. Obviously J.G. Jones is a big name talent and gets lots of high-profile assignments. But everyone else here, well, they deserve more recognition, especially Kelley Jones. Great to see you also give props to Casey Jones (a personal favorite) and oft-overlooked Bronze Age stalwart Arvell Jones.

By the way, I knew that Malcolm Jones III had died an untimely death in the mid-1990s, but until now I was not aware that he had committed suicide. That’s even more sad.

Travis Pelkie

I know I’ve heard of Casey Jones (after he appeared in TMNT, right? ) but I wouldn’t rank him higher than Kelley Jones. I love them big ass bat ears.

And I didn’t know either that Malcolm Jones was a suicide. That’s awful. That Young All-Stars cover is neat, and I can see that maybe he added more to the Sandman stuff he did than I realized. Wow. I think he did ink Kelley Jones on Sandman (maybe? lemme know if I’m wrong), but I know for sure that he inked most of A Doll’s House. When Vertigo reprinted Sandman in that Essential series in the mid-late 90’s, I remember the text piece for issue 16 saying that Jones had re-inked some of the pages (from photostats, I think) because they were originally inked VERY quickly (DC collected A Doll’s House right after 16 came out. And I mean RIGHT after, from what I’ve read). I believe that redoing those Sandman pages was one of the last things he did.

And Malcolm Jones also inked Giffen on Heckler, so that’s also all kinds of AWESOME.

dhole

Kelley Jones was probably my favourite Sandman artist (along with Sam Keith). His work in Season of Mists was great.

Like others, I was expecting a different type of list, culminating in a big Rick Jones no. 1 entry! This was good and informative, though.

I assume the rest of the month is all set, but just for fun I hereby submit my:

TOP FIVE TOP FIVE LIST SUGGESTIONS FOR NEXT YEAR

1. Top 5 Gruesome Garth Ennis-Penned Deaths
2. Top 5 Superman Archetypes not Created by DC
3. Top 5 Wasp Costumes
4. Top 5 Comic Book Characters Who Share Names with Movie Titles (that have nothing to do with the characters)
5. Top 5 Dumb Strategic Choices by Grandmaster and Death in the original Contest with Champions miniseries (with no. 1 being “Deciding not to Double-check the Final Score”)

As usual, these posts have been a lot of fun. Thanks for the hard work, Brian.

Mike Loughlin

One of my favorite underrated art teams was Jones & Jones III on Sandman and Batman/Dracula. I liked the distortions, the atmosphere, and the expressive faces. I don’t like everything Kelly Jones drew – even his best work has inconsistencies- but he’s a very good horror artist.

Dave Hackett

I find Kelley Jones to be an especially frustrating artist. For every absolutely gorgeous panel he does, he turns in 5 that are atrocious. My least favourite Sandman story was “Calliope” and after reading the original script in the Dream Country collection, I realised that it was almost entirely his fault. I keep thinking how “Seasons of the Mist” would have been even better if they had found a way to keep Dringenberg or brought in someone else.

db

I’m very surprised not to see Gerard Jones not getting at least an honorable mention. Aside from memorable runs on Green Lantern and Justice League (and not to mention writing one of my favorite miniseries of the 90’s: Elongated Man), he also wrote two great non-fiction books on the subject of the comics industry: “The Comic Book Heroes” and the terrific “Men of Tomorrow”, a definitive account of the people who created comic books, both the art and the business.

Roman

Julian: how can you not like Mike Dringenberg? When Jones III inked him, it was beautiful. Sadly, George Pratt absolutely butchered his last issue of the Sandman. Pratt is usually pretty good though, so I don’t know what happened there.

benday-dot

Maybe he will show up on one of the future Jones lists, but I am very much surprised not to see the muliti-talented Bruce Jones on this list. Bruce Jones is an exquisite artist as well as a talented comic book writer. He did lots of work for Marvel (Ka-Zar, the Hulk, the black and white mags) and Warren (“Jennifer”). He also did work for Pacific and Eclipse. Not to denigrate Arvell Jones, but surely Bruce Jones is every bit as deserving of a spot on this list.